Though We Went Our Separate Ways
by Basser
Summary: Whoever this freckled bloke was he'd certainly cornered the market on eliciting uncharacteristic reactions from Sherlock Holmes. John Watson, meet Eric Crenshaw.
1. One

**A/N: **_Finally got this edited to my satisfaction. Well, the first bit anyway. There's doubtless going to be more at some point. I had sort of decided on not posting it until the whole thing was finished but you know how I am with WIPs. If I don't post at least part of it I'll never get done._

_So__…__ here you go! First chapter of the oft-requested reunion fic. Warning for copious amounts of d'aww._

_**Note **__if you have arrived here through the 'new stories' queue: this is part of the __**Can't Rewind Verse**__ series. It features an original character who served as a romantic interest for Sherlock in another fic of mine. You can probably still read this without knowing the backstory but it might seem a little silly lacking context__._

* * *

**««**

It was the usual bedlam of a recent crime scene, the smouldering ruins of a block of flats in the background, officers milling about the premises, everything ensconced by ubiquitous yellow tape. John meandered along in the wake of Sherlock's billowing coat and tried not to let his eyes dwell too long on the ambulances parked helter-skelter amongst the debris. No casualties, thank god, but the tenants of the unfortunate building all seemed to be in various states of treatment for injuries ranging from mild burns to smoke inhalation.

Sherlock, in his usual manner, completely ignored the chaos around him. He made a beeline for the figure of Lestrade standing near a cordoned-off patch of pavement. John was quite certain they weren't welcome here - Sherlock hadn't even been contacted about this case, after all; he'd just caught a mention of it on the news and decided for whatever inscrutable reason that the flat fire had to be connected to an ongoing investigation of his.

As John had expected, Lestrade wasted no time in making a half-hearted attempt to shoo the both of them off his crime scene.

"Sherlock, honestly, you can't just-" he started, exasperated, as Donovan glared from behind him. Sherlock promptly cut over the imminent lecture.

"Witnesses?"

Lestrade worked his jaw a tick, looking like he wanted to argue, then simply sighed and indicated a man sitting on the bonnet of a parked squadcar some metres off. "Just the one."

Sherlock didn't even wait to hear the witness' name, just sauntered boldly toward the car and the figure seated atop it. The bloke had his head down, rummaging through his trouser pockets for something, and thus didn't immediately notice when Sherlock started in with his usual condescending clip of an interrogation.

"You were a personal friend of the suspect who started the fire, present in his flat from the time of four in the morning to seven in the evening, ample opportunity to observe his behaviour hours before the fire," Sherlock rattled off impatiently as they neared the witness. Finally the man looked up with a confused expression on a soot-streaked, freckled face. His gaze darted toward John first before flicking over to Sherlock... whereupon his round, amber-brown eyes seemed to widen in shock. He froze in place with his hand half out of his pocket.

Sherlock, of course, merely carried on speaking, his gaze having flitted off into the clouds of smoke some seconds ago as if actually paying attention to the person he was talking to were beneath him.

"What precisely did he say in reference... to..."

John shot a startled look sidelong as Sherlock abruptly trailed off mid-sentence. Beside him the detective had finally shifted his gaze away from the smoke and trained it on the witness' face. Their expressions now mirrored twin looks of abject shock as they stared each other down.

"What's wrong?" John flitted his eyes back and forth between the two men, instantly on the alert. What? Was there a hidden weapon? Did the bloke have a gun on him?

"... oh," Sherlock muttered after a rather long pause. He seemed to have frozen with his hands tucked neatly behind his back, posture a picture-perfect image of calm poise. The collected stance stood in ridiculous contrast to the look of stunned surprise on his face.

"Bloody..." The witness' voice faded out as he slowly moved his hands away from his pockets. Freckled cheeks bunched up a bit in a tiny, half-bewildered smile, one hand going to rub nervously at the back of his head as he tried again with a more appropriate reply. "Er... hi?"

Sherlock just kept staring. John, for his part, was beginning to feel very out of the loop. Lacking anything to say, however, he held his tongue and watched with interest as Sherlock's ramrod-straight posture seemed to melt into an awkward, fidgety quest for something to do with his hands.

"What are you doing at a flat in Islington?" the detective asked rather suddenly, sounding a tad bit scandalised. He'd finally shoved his fists into the front pockets of his greatcoat in an odd sort of defensive-looking posture and stood half-glaring at the man in front of them.

"I, er... my friend lives here?" The witness gave them a slightly confused shrug and another befuddled smile. His accent was difficult to place - estuary, mostly, but with buried hints of a cockney drawl and some vague northern influences. "Or, I mean... he did, anyway. It's a bit burnt now."

Sherlock frowned. "You've relocated to Lancaster. Bit of a trip just to visit a _friend._"

"Well it was more for business, mostly. London's got a better import selection on woodwinds so I figured I'd..." The man's words cut off suddenly and he shot Sherlock a vaguely affronted look. His accent seemed to slip a few notches toward cockney in apparent annoyance. "Oi hang on - you been keepin' tabs on where I live?"

Sherlock's arms stiffened in his pockets as he hunched his shoulders slightly. "No."

The two of them stared each other down for a few seconds. Finally the witness snorted, and, laughing, allowed his expression to crack into a wide grin.

"You haven't changed a bit, have you?"

"Is that a bad thing?" Despite the bland monotone of Sherlock's voice his bearing remained rigid, defensive almost. John glanced between the two men again. Clearly they knew each other from somewhere. Former friends, maybe? But then Sherlock had always been quick to assert that he didn't _do _'friends', so...

Rather than answer Sherlock's question the man merely shook his head, a smile still playing at his lips. He shoved a hand through short, soot-stained hair and glanced behind them at the tangle of police officers milling about the investigation scene.

"Bit of a career change, this, ain't it? Never expected you of all blokes to be a cop..."

"I'm not a _cop_. I'm a private detective." Sherlock's expression flitted towards an annoyed frown. "The Met recruits me for consultation whenever their stupidity gets the better of them. Which is _always_."

"I think in this case you more recruited yourself," John pointed out, feeling as if he should at least try and keep the facts straight. Sherlock shot him an irritated sidelong glance.

"Eric," he intoned blandly, still fixing John with an annoyed look. He turned his head back to the witness and gestured to his flatmate before continuing. "This is John Watson, my... assistant. John, Eric Crenshaw."

"Cheers," Crenshaw greeted and flashed a wide, cheerful smile as he accepted John's handshake. After a pause he glanced between the two of them, expression gone a bit odd but still firmly on the side of friendly. "Er... so you two are...?"

John fought the urge to sigh. Yep, and there they went again - because _clearly_ he and Sherlock were shagging each other. John forced back an exasperated expression and opened his mouth to correct the ubiquitous mistake. Why did everyone always guess that? Did he and Sherlock really look _that _much like a gay couple?

Before John could say anything, though, and for the first time in living memory... he was beaten to the punch.

"Flatmates," Sherlock cut in quickly. Rather _too _quickly, all things considered. John startled, shot him a baffled look _(Sherlock giving a damn what people assumed about them? What parallel universe had they stumbled into?) _and Sherlock cleared his throat awkwardly before continuing in a less abrupt tone. "... _just_ flatmates. John accompanies me on investigations because he's an adrenaline junkie."

"Oi," John objected, frowning. Neither of the other two seemed to be paying him much heed however.

"Oh! Well that's gre- I mean, erm..." Crenshaw coughed and looked elsewhere, a slight flush creeping up his freckled cheeks. "That is... thought he looked a bit old for you? Ah, no offence there, mate," he added toward John with a wince.

John shrugged. "None taken." He glanced back to Sherlock, who appeared to be having a great deal of trouble deciding what to say next, and furrowed his brows in bemusement. Well that was odd, wasn't it? Considering the great prat nearly always had a scathing reply at the ready... honestly if John didn't know better he'd classify this whole interaction as an awkward meeting between exes.

Turning back to Crenshaw_ (who was also looking rather tongue-tied; good lord this was just going nowhere fast, wasn't it?) _John decided he'd best try to salvage a shred of professionalism. He dug his notepad from the inside pocket of his coat and flipped it open with a matter-of-fact clearing of his throat. Both other men seemed to startle a bit and shifted their attention towards him.

"About your friend, then?" he asked amicably. Crenshaw pressed the palms of his hands together in a strange gesture and nodded somewhat absently, glancing to the ruined building behind them.

"Mick, y'mean... right, er..." He cleared his throat, and with his next words the slur of cockney which had begun to creep into his speech over the last few minutes had morphed back into a more business-like Estuary clip. "Well he was acting a bit strangely most of the day, really. Pacing round muttering to himself. He's a pretty weird bloke normally though so I didn't think much of it. I left at ten or so this morning, was out meeting with suppliers until around four, then I came back to fetch some paperwork. When I walked in Mick was carrying this little red horse statue about - he usually kept it on the coffee table, you know, decorative thing - and he was shouting how he had to get rid of it right away or something terrible would happen. And then-"

"You heard alarms or cries from the other tenants indicating that the building was on fire and evacuated, obviously," Sherlock cut in. His mysterious fit of nerves earlier seemed to have subsided into something more approaching his usual aloof attitude. "Mick disappeared in the chaos and hasn't responded to any calls or texts. The police will have found the horse statue shattered on the pavement nearby, revealing it to have been concealing detailed notes concerning the arson in his handwriting, leading to his declaration as the primary suspect."

John waited for the inevitable baffled look, questions of _'how did you know that'_ or some otherwise bewildered reaction from the witness. Jarringly, though, Crenshaw just carried on with the conversation unruffled, behaving as if Sherlock's interjection were perfectly normal.

"Yeah. Only it's weird 'cause Mick was about the last guy you'd expect to be an_ arsonist_, of all things. Bloke's seriously phobic of fire. Won't even touch the stove, panics if he sees a box of matches. I can't imagine how he managed to set a whole _building _alight..."

"Clearly he was framed." Sherlock had pulled his mobile from his pocket and flicked a few keys to bring up a photo. He handed the device to Crenshaw. "Same horse figurine?"

"Yep." Crenshaw raised his eyebrows at the phone and turned it over to look at the back casing. "Is this the new Blackberry? What'd you pay for it?"

"Nothing. Mycroft foisted it on me." Sherlock rather uncharacteristically allowed his phone to remain in Crenshaw's possession as he turned to beckon Lestrade over. It took a few tries to get the DI's attention, but the man soon caught sight of Sherlock's impatient waving and raised his arms in a _'can't you see I'm busy?' _posture. Sherlock just beckoned him again, glaring, and with a put-upon roll of his eyes Lestrade left a few parting words with the officer he'd been speaking to and started toward them.

"Sherlock, I've got an investigation to run. If you've tied everything up in a neat little bow that's great but I still have to manage the-"

"The next target will be an odd-numbered home in Hackney's St. Elphin's Park development. Your arsonist will arrive near midnight tonight to lay incendiaries and will walk with a pronounced limp. Use the manufacturer's seal of the horse figurine to find others who purchased the same item within a two-week timeframe of the first incident."

"What first incident?" Lestrade's expression was set in its usual mix of confusion, grudging respect, and mild exasperation.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "The hotel fire in Haringey, clearly."

"Clearly," Lestrade repeated in a flat voice. He shifted one hand to his hip while the other scrubbed tiredly through his hair. "Right, I have no idea what fire you're referring to... but well enough, we'll look into it. Hackney's next, you said?"

Sherlock nodded. Lestrade dropped the hand from his head and retrieved a notebook from his coat pocket to jot down the instructions. Once done he looked over Sherlock's shoulder to Crenshaw still sitting on the bonnet of the squad car behind them.

"Sorry if he's given you any trouble, sir. Consulting detective for the arson case... gets a bit abrasive, but he's the best we've got for this sort of investigation."

Crenshaw smiled and glanced toward Sherlock with something like fond pride. "I'm alright," he assured brightly. He'd been fiddling idly with Sherlock's phone for the last few minutes and, seeming to remember he was holding it, now handed it back. Sherlock accepted it without much thought and slipped it into his trouser pocket.

Lestrade watched the exchange with a slight lift of his browline and shot a questioning glance to John, who just shrugged. Old mates from somewhere, apparently, but beyond that John really had no clue what had prompted Sherlock's trust in the bloke.

"Am I free to go, then?" Crenshaw asked of Lestrade. Free of an object to fret with his hands shifted to lightly pressing his palms together instead. "It's getting a bit late and there's not too many hotels nearby, so..."

Lestrade tucked his notepad away in his coat pocket. "You spoke to someone about lost property?" Crenshaw nodded. "Long as we've got contact information you're welcome to leave, then. Be sure to check any messages. Sherlock, I'll be e-mailing you later and if you've put me in your spam filter again I swear to-"

"Go and oversee your minions, Lestrade. You'll find Donovan's police badge caught on a fence railing near the east entrance." Sherlock waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the milling officers and turned back towards Crenshaw. Lestrade paused a moment, likely meaning to ask after the badge comment, before a voice crackled through the handset on his belt.

_"DI Lestrade, sir, I think I've lost my-"_

Lestrade sighed irritably to himself and turned to walk off, barking a _'fence railing, east entrance'_ into his radio as he went. John was left with Sherlock and Crenshaw once more.

"Well then, shall we-" John started, but Sherlock's attention was elsewhere.

"All the hotels within reasonable distance will have filled up with displaced residents by now," he said to Crenshaw, expression gone somewhere oddly stern mixed with what John could only describe as vague embarrassment. Honestly, his cheeks were even colouring a bit. Whoever this freckled bloke was he'd certainly cornered the market on eliciting uncharacteristic reactions from Sherlock Holmes.

Crenshaw grimaced and rubbed at the back of his neck. "God, yeah... I hadn't really budgeted for it but I s'pose I'll have to-"

"Our flat has a sofa."

John startled and looked over to Sherlock, who seemed every bit as taken off-guard by his own words as John was. His eyes widened in alarm but he'd fixed his gaze determinedly on Crenshaw's face, seemingly unwilling to acknowledge that his cheeks had flushed pink and his posture had gone taut again.

Crenshaw's hand froze at the back of his neck and he looked over to Sherlock. "Er..."

"It would be the more logical option considering you're planning to remain in the city for at least a week and don't have the finances for an extended hotel stay nor excessive cab fare," Sherlock rattled off quickly. Trying to save face, it seemed. He was still blushing, though, which rather ruined the attempt. "John and I live in Westminster by the Baker Street tube station."

"Christ, that'd... that'd actually be really convenient?" Crenshaw glanced at the pavement, biting his lip - and bloody hell, but now _he'd _gone red too? John tried to force the juvenile smirk off his face. Good lord if this was some sort of ex-boyfriend he was never going to let Sherlock hear the end of it.

"It's fine by me," he put in helpfully. "I'm scheduled clinic hours for the next few days anyway, flat'll be empty."

Crenshaw opened his mouth, but Sherlock seemed to have decided already. "Settled, then. I'll fetch a cab." And without waiting for a reply he marched resolutely off to hail a taxi.

John looked after him, then back to Crenshaw. The poor lad's cheeks had gone bright red, palms pressing together in what appeared to be a nervous habit. Despite all efforts not to John found himself smiling in amusement. He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and casually allowed his hands to fall into an idle parade rest posture behind his back.

"You two knew each other quite well, then, I'm guessing?" he asked with perhaps a _tad _more of a teasing inflection to his voice than was strictly necessary... but _really_ now, this was bloody hilarious. Sherlock was behaving like an awkward teenager over some freckled bloke from Lancaster with a working-class accent and sensible trousers. Whatever the history was here it _had_ to involve something scandalous.

"Y-yeah. We were..." Crenshaw glanced up toward Sherlock, now hailing a cab by the kerb several metres off, then looked back to John with a sheepish smile and a shrug. "Erm... housemates? Just for a month or so, back when we were kids."

"Kids?"

"Nineteen, twenty-ish." The young man quirked a small smile to himself and pushed off the bonnet of the squadcar to finally stand on his own two feet, grabbing as he did so the grey coat he'd had lying beside him. "It was a pretty weird time in my life, to be honest. In both our lives."

John wanted to ask him to elaborate, but Sherlock shouted something indistinct, beckoning them impatiently by the roadside where a cab was now pulling up to the kerb. Crenshaw tugged his wool jacket on over his shirt and together they set off toward the taxi.

**««**

Sherlock was stuck somewhere between being very cross with himself and pleased giddiness. On the one hand what in _hell's_ name had prompted him to offer their sofa to someone he hadn't spoken to in nearly a decade, and whom he'd originally known for less than a month!? ... On the other it was _Eric _and Eric was more or less technically speaking the only serious romantic relationship Sherlock had ever had in his_ life _and for some asinine reason his brain refused to stop falling all to pieces over that fact. And so there he was, trapped vacillating randomly from one emotion to the other like a broken metronome.

Eric grinned as he and John came within speaking distance. "So do you have some kind of obsession with poncy coats, or what? That thing's got to be worth more than my house."

He'd learnt to mask the cockney quite well, hadn't he? Barely perceptible now. Presumably he'd done so for business reasons, make himself sound more trustworthy to clients and employees, facilitate better relationships with investors. A vast improvement over the nigh-incomprehensible jumble of speech Sherlock remembered. Which made this vague sense of disappointment over the lack of slurred nonsense coming out of the man's mouth rather frustratingly confusing. Why did Sherlock _care_, honestly? He'd hated that stupid accent.

The jab about coats, though... He raised a brow at Eric's attire - brown trousers with a grey woollen peacoat. That jacket had to be at least as expensive as Sherlock's greatcoat, well over the thousand pound range, so the man was hardly in a position to throw stones.

"No more than you, apparently," Sherlock retorted blandly as they climbed into the cab _(John on the end and Eric in the middle seat, somehow, and Sherlock wasn't entirely sure why that pleased him so much)_ and let John give the driver directions. Sherlock glanced toward Eric, meaning to ask after his business in London, but was distracted by the man's sleeve. A tear there had been sewn shut at some point, and the material was slightly discoloured, frayed... oh _bloody hell_, that wasn't just an expensive coat, that was...

"That's- you _kept_ it?"

Eric shot him an embarrassed sidelong look and shrugged. "S'a nice jacket."

"It's been _eight years_," Sherlock snapped, disgruntled. How in hell had he even managed to keep the thing in wearable condition after so long!? On the far side of the cab John raised his eyebrows but didn't bother asking what they were on about.

"So what do you do in Lancaster?" the doctor inquired instead, falling easily into his usual role of facilitating elements of social interaction which Sherlock had declared intolerably dull, like small talk. In this case, though, Sherlock found he was rather interested in the answer. Not that he hadn't picked up quite a few clues from Eric's speech and appearance already _(t-shirt from a Lancaster music programme under his half-buttoned overshirt, brief mention of 'woodwinds' and of meeting with suppliers) _but it would be good to know what he'd been up to. For curiosity's sake, obviously, nothing but a healthy interest in facts.

"I run a music school for kids, teach 'em how to play instruments and sing. It's done really well, actually." Eric smiled, all modest pride, and Sherlock found himself completely lost for what to say. That was... well, it was exactly what Eric would do, wasn't it? And damned to hell if it weren't distressingly endearing. He told himself the pleased flush through his chest was a response to the knowledge that his leftover trust fund money had been put to decent use. Certainly nothing so sentimental as happiness for Eric's success.

"You're a musician, then?" John continued. He'd either not noticed the odd expressions warring for control of Sherlock's face or chosen not to acknowledge them, something Sherlock was rather grateful for.

"Guitarist, yeah. I've picked up enough piano to get by, though, and most everything else in the school. You kinda have to know your way around the basics at the very least if you're looking to hire anyone competent enough to teach."

The conversation from there veered towards things Sherlock was relieved to find extremely dull. Seemed no amount of being disgustingly happy for Eric could make a discussion of financial structuring and client relations halfway interesting, so at least he knew his brain was still functioning normally on _some _level. By the time they arrived back at the flat he was even beginning to settle back into his usual anti-social mental patterns. Bored, annoyed, crowded. More than ready to be done with all this interacting-with-people nonsense and get back to his work.

Eric trailing after them into the stairwell, though, and John introducing him in passing to Mrs Hudson, somehow conspired to set Sherlock back into a state of awkward fidgeting once more. Concerned for what Eric would think of the flat, of the half-tidy disaster of a sitting room, of the haphazard pile of chemistry supplies on the table. Ugh and the couch was too small to expect someone to sleep on comfortably - why had he offered it in the first place? This was ridiculous, he shouldn't have-

"Hah! Is that a cow skull with headphones on?"

"It's a bison," Sherlock corrected vaguely, speech stuck on autopilot while his brain chased itself in circles. He hung up his coat beside John's and had a brief loss for what to do with his hands before shoving them roughly in his trouser pockets. "... the headphones were a gift from a client."

Eric laughed. "I gotta find one of those things for the school lobby, that's brilliant."

And Sherlock found himself smiling, because _hah_ - someone else thought the bison was funny. John had been after him to take the headphones off at the very least _(some nonsense about professionalism when clients came round)_, Mycroft had deemed it unbearably childish while Lestrade seemed to regard it with the same bland exasperation he afforded any other strange whim of Sherlock's. Well sod the lot of them and their stupid opinions - it _was_ brilliant.

Eric was now looking bemusedly to the spraypaint smiley-face on the wall, and Sherlock quickly took it upon himself to explain where _that_ had come from. And the bullet holes. Eric snickered the whole way through.

"Well I mean what else are you gonna do with a can of paint but vandalise a wall?" Eric agreed, grinning. "Good aim on the eye holes though, blimey."

"John was upset about me discharging a weapon indoors."

Eric made a _pfft_ noise and shrugged one shoulder. "Stuff 'im, didn't hurt nobody."

"That's what _I _said, and Mrs Hudson deducted damages from the rent the next month to cover the plaster repair on the other side so I still don't see what all the fuss was about."

Eric laughed again, and Sherlock smiled. And for just a moment he forgot about the arson case and the nicotine patch starting to wear off on his arm. For a moment he was twenty years old again, not a shred of responsibility to his name and nothing to concern himself with besides making sure he had enough cash to buy a half-gram and a pack of cigs.

And perhaps he could bring himself to admit that those times hadn't been entirely unpleasant. Oh, make no mistake, he'd never want to go back; _nothing_ excused the hellish roller coaster of highs and crashes, constant danger of living amongst criminals, being led around like a dog on a chain on nothing but the promise of more drugs... never, ever again.

But there _had _been some bright points... one in particular, really. A single upside amidst the disaster of his life back in those days. Freckles and a silly accent, laughing over stupid things they both found funny even when everyone else called them childish. Dark alleys, nicked cigarettes, the smell of marijuana clinging to a mop of messy brown hair...

Sod it all, he'd actually missed this. He'd missed _Eric._

**««**

John wasn't sure he'd ever be able to stop smiling to himself like an idiot. Off in the other room Sherlock was busy explaining where every single odd or out-of-place object in the sitting room had come from, sounding for all the world like an excited little boy, while Crenshaw chimed in with snickering and amused comments every other sentence in a tone every bit as enthused as Sherlock's. Against everything John had come to expect of his flatmate it seemed Sherlock Holmes was actually managing to get on _famously_ with someone. It was both adorable and strangely unsettling all at once.

He wondered if he shouldn't just abandon the tea and disappear to his room, give the two some space to catch up. No sooner had he had the thought, though, than he found himself instead crowded into the kitchen by two exuberant twenty-eight year olds.

"She lets me take body parts from the morgue so long as I promise to bring them back. I've even gotten a severed head before."

"What'd you need a severed head for?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to see if she'd let me have it. Made up some excuse about testing saliva... Here, see, eyeballs!"

Sherlock had been rummaging around in the fridge as he spoke and now emerged with, as promised, a baggie full of eyeballs. Crenshaw laughed and reached out to take the bag.

"Ah gross, they squish!"

"Don't pop them," Sherlock admonished, then squeezed one of them himself and snickered along with Crenshaw when the pupil bulged out.

John leant against the countertop behind him with his arms crossed, watching the display bemusedly. Hadn't even been re-acquainted with the bloke for two hours and already Sherlock had progressed to the rare _'behaving like a schoolboy on a sugar rush' _level of friendly interaction. And Crenshaw had said they'd been _housemates_? No way. Something more than that, surely...

"John, what did you do with the tongue?" Sherlock was back in the fridge again. John grimaced slightly - that _bloody _fixation with body parts, good god.

"I gave it back to Molly after you left it in the crisper drawer again," John explained with an annoyed frown. "I told you I was going to."

"What!? No you didn't!" Sherlock stuck his head over the door and pouted at John. Beside him Crenshaw was smirking, expression almost fond.

"You know I did, and I made sure you were paying attention this time so if you've forgotten that's on you."

Sherlock huffed but didn't pursue the matter further. Instead he grabbed the bag of eyeballs back from Crenshaw, tossed them in the fridge _(on their proper shelf, John was relieved to see) _and turned to drag their guest off toward the rest of the flat.

"Never mind, there's a skeletonised rat in my room-"

Crenshaw's face went faintly pink, making John smirk to himself. Sherlock, of course, completely failed to pick up on the possible implications of leading someone by the hand to his _bedroom _and remained blithely unconcerned as they left the kitchen.

John lingered behind, shaking his head bemusedly._ Kids._

**««**


	2. Two

**««**

Sherlock's bedroom was a fair bit tidier than one might have expected.

That was a boring, uneventful, entirely non-scandalous thought, and Eric was doing his best to keep it at the forefront of his mind where it would hopefully drown out other things. Things like finding himself quite unexpectedly hand-in-hand with a bloke he hadn't spoken to in a very, _very _long time, to whom he owed practically every current success of his life to, and whom he'd honestly expected to never set eyes on again. It was all getting a tad overwhelming.

It seemed like he was only just now beginning to register the reality of who exactly he'd bumped into at that squadcar. For a time there it hadn't been much more than a series of surface reactions - old acquaintance, fine, yes, slip back into friendly banter. _(And slip back into the old accent, irritatingly enough, hadn't done that in bloody years...)_ Being shown around his flat hadn't set the whole thing in stone either; mostly because it was all new things and Sherlock's explanations of everything, while genuinely entertaining, still made it all-too-obvious that he'd moved on from Stockwell just as thoroughly as Eric had. It was reminiscent of meeting a man who only coincidentally looked and sounded like someone you'd once known - the same person, perhaps, but only by technicality.

But this... now suddenly they were holding hands. And personalities evolved, circumstances improved and new careers were built... but the way two peoples' fingers interlocked could never really change. And that, for Eric at the very least, served to snap the whole absurd situation into alarmingly sharp focus.

_Jesus fuckin' christ, it's really Sherlock_, his brain informed him _(and oh for god's sake, even his thoughts were reverting to cockney now?)_ and with a sensation of having been thrust out of his own body to watch some surreal play take place he looked away from the framed chemical chart he'd been focussing on. His eyes found Sherlock's, and met what seemed to be an equally shocked expression mirrored in marbled grey-blue.

Wordlessly they both dropped their hands, taking a step apart.

"Er..." Eric started. He hadn't actually thought of anything he might say beyond that, though, and so the sound trailed off into awkward dead air.

Beside him Sherlock's look of vaguely alarmed discomfort seemed to morph all at once into one of studied disinterest. The man wrinkled his nose, glanced pointedly elsewhere, then slipped his hands into his pockets as if he'd meant to do so all along and leant back on his heels. His bearing dropped into a casual, indifferent posture.

"Payback for all the times you dragged me off by the arm," he droned sarcastically. There was a slight flush to his cheeks, belying his aloof routine, which made the charade all the more pointless. Eric furrowed his brows in a sudden burst of exasperation.

"Still doing the whole 'bleeding robot' thing, then," he retorted flatly. Not a question - didn't need to be, the facade was completely sodding obvious. Sherlock startled a tiny bit in response to his angry tone and turned back to blink at him.

"Doing the-?" He cut himself off as Eric just continued to scowl. Sherlock frowned and for a brief, searching second looked to the far wall, lips thinning as if he were mentally weighing some decision. Finally after a pause he set his face in some undefinable expression of sullied annoyance and let all the false poise melt out of his stance.

It was just a series of tiny movements, really - loosening of the shoulders and spine, slight tilt of his head, muscles repositioning - but somehow each shift came together to give the effect of him transforming from an imposing aristocrat to a sulking teenager with the flip of a lightswitch. Mystifying. And every bit as disturbing as Eric remembered. He huffed a quiet laugh.

"Creepy as hell."

"It's a useful tactic," Sherlock snapped defensively, seeming a little embarrassed but no less miffed at having been caught out. "Unless you expect me to somehow intimidate suspects whilst... fidgeting."

As if illustrating the very concept he did some odd thing with his hands and shifted his weight back and forth. Which, granted, did look a tad silly and definitely wasn't ideal for questioning murderers or whatever. Still, though. Eric half-rolled his eyes.

"That don't stop it bein' goddamn unsettlin' t'watch you switch like that. Lay off."

For some reason, instead of countering with an annoyed rebuttal, Sherlock just smirked. Eric blinked and responded with a slight glare.

"What?"

"Your accent's slipped," Sherlock pointed out, his tone just this side of teasing. Eric coloured a bit. For god's- of all the things to change the _bleeding_ subject with it had to be- ugh. Flustered, he nonetheless managed to keep his expression serious, slipped his own hands into his trouser pockets and sized up their current predicament. They now stood rather awkwardly facing each other, stock-still in the middle of the floor beside Sherlock's bed. Things had evidently taken a bit of a turn somewhere.

When he glanced back up Sherlock was still smirking at him. Eric scoffed. "Never said I was trying to hide it."

"No," Sherlock agreed, then fixed him with a supremely smug look. "But of course you've just switched back to Estuary for no particular reason, haven't you? Which along with the way you've been shifting in and out of Cockney speaking patterns at random for the past few hours indicates rather strongly that you've become accustomed to-"

In a flash of annoyed pique Eric reached out and shoved the git's head lightly sideways, cutting off his condescending monologue before it could get properly started. Not hard enough to hurt, of course - just startle the guy, perhaps muss up his hair a bit so he'd look ridiculous. It was something he used to do back in Stockwell on those occasions when Sherlock's coke-fuelled rambling got to be too manic for anyone to follow. Quick jolt to the side of the head, shut the idiot up for long enough to reboot and derail himself from whatever train of thought he'd gotten stuck on. Pretty much always guaranteed to work.

Doing it now hadn't been a conscious action, really, more of a reflex. And the second he drew his hand back Eric found himself worrying if perhaps he'd just crossed a line. That, admittedly, had been _very _forward... not to mention easily construed as a threat. Subconsciously he braced himself to defend against any forthcoming blows, wary of Sherlock lashing out in anger. He'd never reacted negatively when they were kids, of course, but this was quite a bit different, wasn't it? They were bloody _adults_ now. One didn't go round smacking other grown men upside the head instead of just politely telling them to be quiet, christ.

Far from being provoked, though, Sherlock just blinked, shot a rather petulant glare Eric's way and then brought a hand up to smooth his curls back into place.

"Uncalled for," he grumbled.

"Brought it on yourself," Eric countered with a shrug. A small, faintly relieved quirk of a smile made its way unbidden to his face, the brief jolt of tension melting out of his stance. Sherlock, of course, picked up on his waning discomfort with barely a glance. The man rolled his eyes as he patted down an errant ringlet.

"Oh relax, I'm not going to punch you for messing up my hair," he droned, unimpressed. Eric, unsure of what to say, just shrugged. Couldn't deny being concerned, really; it'd been a legitimate fear.

Hazy recollections of a night years ago swam to the forefront of his brain, making Eric frown to himself - a thug's knife to his throat, thrum of sheer terror in his chest, the boy he'd agreed to date mere hours before standing wraithlike in the street with blood down his face and the hollow gaze of a killer. Stuff of sodding nightmares.

Up to that point Eric had been mostly confident in defining Sherlock as an awkward, fidgety mess. Clearly doing his best to hide behind an aristocrat act, often failing at it. Because at his core the guy was really nothing more than an overgrown child, wasn't he? A kid playing grown-up? He could never be anything _dangerous._

But in those few minutes in the street, as he watched Sherlock's restless warmth be eclipsed by cold steel fury, cowered whilst the coke-addled toff proceeded to dispatch three armed thugs without the slightest pause for fear or mercy... suddenly Eric hadn't been so sure. Sherlock in that instant had been bloody _terrifying_. And Eric couldn't help but wonder... was that the man's true face? Which was the act, here: the childish prat or the soulless monster? How could one ever be sure they weren't being fooled by the mask of a psychopath?

For the next few days he'd fretted over the problem like a nervous tic. Eventually, though, he'd been able to convince himself to calm down. Sherlock's bouts of behaving like a robot were comfortingly predictable and quite plainly guileless. Mostly centred around avoiding social anxiety, it seemed, harmless enough to spark a sense of fond exasperation. Eric had soon found himself reassured enough to stop worrying about the threat of unexpected violence. His boyfriend wouldn't snap - the bloke was _quirky_, yes, but not insane. Everything was fine. For a while he'd even allowed himself to dream of a future together. Something like mutual happiness, he supposed, unsullied by the grim reality of lengthening criminal records and the looming threat of prison. It could happen.

Then, of course, Ben had been killed. And Sherlock had... christ.

With a small sigh Eric took a few steps backward and let himself drop to a seat on Sherlock's bed. The brief atmosphere of levity drained from the room like a punctured flask.

Sherlock shifted, expression going a bit nervous. "Really, I wouldn't."

"I know." Eric huffed and flipped a hand in vague explanation for some abstract idea he couldn't quite convey. All the excitement of the last few hours seemed to be catching up to him at once. He managed to dredge up a tired smile to show Sherlock nothing was seriously wrong, though it dropped after a short beat. "If it were anyone else, though..."

"Anyone else and I'd have dodged." Sherlock frowned with an air as if he thought that point should have been obvious. He rocked back on his heels in doubt for a second, then, seeming to decide something, strode over to his chest of drawers and began rummaging around.

"What're y'doin'?" Eric asked, watching as Sherlock dug around in what appeared to be an excessively well-organised sock drawer.

"Accent," Sherlock replied teasingly. Eric scowled, spent a brief moment resisting the impulse to chuck something at the git, then flung the nearest pillow.

"What. Are. You. Doin-_g_," he repeated in as clear a pronunciation as he could possibly force out his windpipe. Sherlock smirked and, presumably in retaliation for the pillow which had just hit him in the spine, turned to toss a bundle of clothes directly towards Eric's face.

"You stink of wood smoke and you're getting soot all over my duvet, go and have a bloody shower." His tone was clearly meant to be snippy but lost quite a bit on the delivery as he failed to suppress a snicker over the fact that the pyjama trousers he'd thrown had landed with one leg draped over Eric's head. After quickly composing himself he turned towards his window and gestured dismissively to the hall. "Down the hall to the right, shouldn't be difficult to find."

Eric gathered up the scattered clothes and rolled his eyes. "I'll pretend that's you bein' considerate."

Jabs aside, though, the thought of a shower did sound bloody heavenly. He dragged himself to a standing position and, stifling a yawn, made his way out the door.

**««**

Sherlock watched Eric's blurry reflection disappear into the hall, then turned to lean with his back against the glass. His hands had found their way back to his pockets somehow while his heel shifted to rest on the wall, toe of his shoe tapping against the hardwood a few times as he stared down at the floor pattern in thought.

"Erm."

There was a slight knock on the open panel of the door, someone clearing their throat. Sherlock lifted his gaze to find John standing just outside the room looking vaguely awkward.

"I was going to ring for a Chinese or something, there's not much in," the man offered in explanation for why he was hovering there. He glanced around the room, apparently searching for their guest, then looked back to Sherlock. "Everything alright?"

"Fine," Sherlock replied easily. He felt his own posture begin to shift into aloof poise; default behaviour when speaking to John. _Why_, though? He'd told Eric the tactic was for intimidating witnesses, not... ugh. Ridiculous. As if proving some internal point to himself he mentally switched the whole process off, felt his stance drop back into whatever graceless nonsense he'd been standing in before. There. Perfectly normal. Not using an act on his flatmate. As if he'd ever need to.

In the doorway John blinked.

"Right, then..." the doctor hummed, drawing out the 'R' - plainly he'd noticed Sherlock's odd shifts in bearing, deliberated on a reaction then chosen not to comment. Instead he glanced over his shoulder toward the hall. "Crenshaw's gone off somewhere?"

"I told him to have a shower, he smelt like a chimney sweep."

Hm, well. This was actually quite disconcerting, wasn't it? Speaking casually to John without doing the whole... what did Eric always insist on calling it? _Robot thing? _Moronic. Nevertheless Sherlock was finding himself having to actively avoid letting his mannerisms creep into a pre-built persona of any sort. Which was absurd as there was no plausible reason to need to keep up appearances for a man he _lived_ with - not when he often wandered about the flat in his pyjamas whingeing about boredom, at any rate. John hadn't had reasonable cause to be intimidated by Sherlock in bloody ages.

But then again there _was_ a rather stark difference between dashing around being royally ticked off at the world for not producing enough excitement and... whatever this was. Standing about by the window looking probably quite pathetic, tapping his foot with his hands in his pockets and staring at the floor. Definitely abnormal. John would think him lost or confused, preoccupied... emotionally compromised. Which was ridiculous, of course, as Sherlock didn't _do _emotions. He had complete control over his mental space, didn't he? Sociopath. Yes.

And _being_ a sociopath meant that he could choose not to feel anything at all. He could _choose_ not to be tempted to dwell on Eric's brief flash of fearful wariness and he could _choose_ to forget their whole history together and he could _choose_ to go back to being the impregnable fortress of disinterest John expected him to be. All it would take was a mental flip of a switch. One quick shift and he'd be back to his usual self, easy as anything.

Or... he could also choose to keep leaning on the window looking like a pillock. Which his brain had apparently somehow declared the better option, because despite all efforts to do otherwise his posture didn't shift out of a casual slouch and he kept on tapping his foot. Aggravating.

John, for his part, hadn't yet moved from the door frame. Sherlock was too busy being nebulously frustrated by the actions of his own physical shell to really pay the other man much heed.

Eventually, though, he heard John clear his throat.

"You two weren't just housemates."

Sherlock glanced up from where he'd been studying the hardwood again and furrowed his brows at John's odd expression. It was a look more appropriate to a sarcastically-teasing Lestrade than any of the doctor's usual moods.

"Sorry?" he asked, not immediately seeing the point of John's statement.

John shifted to lean on the door frame and crossed his arms, smirking. Which was a very strange expression to see on John's face; hopefully he'd stop in short order. Actually, no... scratch that, he should bloody well quit right now. Sherlock frowned in vague disgruntlement and spoke up before the other could answer.

"Stop making that face."

John's distressing smirk widened into a fuller, far less unsettling smile _(vastly more appropriate to his facial features) _and he shook his head with a small chuckle as he shifted his weight against the door.

"Housemates," he repeated, getting back to the topic he'd broached. "Crenshaw said you'd just lived together. But it was a bit more than that, wasn't it?"

Sherlock frowned. Eric had spoken to John alone? When? "I don't think it's really any of your business."

"Oh, no, course it isn't." John held up his hands and smiled, poorly stifling another chuckle. "Still, though... nice to see. Great Sherlock Holmes, reuniting with an ex. Same old silly drama as the rest of us."

"There hasn't been any _drama_. I just leant him some clothes and told him to have a shower. Aren't you the one always going on about being hospitable?"

"That'd be Mrs. Hudson, actually." John lifted his good shoulder in a bland shrug... then smirked again. Equally disturbing the second time round. Sherlock glared in response. "And no, clearly there's not been drama," John continued. "You're only standing about your bedroom looking like a lovelorn teenager. Nothing odd there."

"Shut up."

John just snorted mirthfully to himself and turned to amble off toward the sitting room. After a scant few steps though he paused mid-stride and turned back round.

"Oh, I really was going to ring for a Chinese. Is the regular alright, or...?"

"It's fine. Eric's fond of pork fried rice so add it as a side dish or something."

Abruptly John was grinning again. "See, the fact that you _know_ that..."

"I'm an observational genius, why wouldn't I remember someone's culinary preferences?" Sherlock finally got round to pushing himself off the window to stand upright, training a look of general annoyance on the world at large. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and tried not to acknowledge the undertone of defensiveness in his posture or voice.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you deleted the entire _solar system_ and constantly mix up what year it is?" John, mercifully, had resumed his travel to the sitting room, which meant Sherlock could now indulge in his juvenile temptation to silently flip the man off without being spotted. "What was it you said about memory, though?" John added over his shoulder. "Only keep the things that matter?"

Sherlock scowled but chose not to dignify that with a response. Glaring at the chuckling, retreating form of his flatmate he took a few long strides forward, grabbed the edge of his bedroom door and smartly snapped it shut. A split-second later, however, he reopened it a crack.

"Let me know when the food arrives."

"Expect you'll deduce that when the doorbell rings."

With an irritated huff Sherlock snapped the door shut again. After a few beats glaring petulantly at the panelling he took a few steps to the side, let himself flop backwards onto his bed, and glowered instead at the ceiling. His hands came up to rest fingertip-to-fingertip under his chin in a habitual posture.

_Drama_... there hadn't been any bloody drama. Stupid.

**««**


	3. Three

**««**

John looked up from the phone in his hand just in time to catch the tall form of what he could only assume to be Crenshaw shuffle blearily into the sitting room.

Making a definite identification was a bit difficult, as the lad had one of Sherlock's dark blue towels over his head and was busily scrubbing it through his hair. Dotted constellations of freckles up both his arms were clearly visible in his new short-sleeved attire, however, which consisted of a faded old t-shirt and a pair of Sherlock's pyjama trousers, so he was fairly certain in his assumption of who it was.

As he set the phone down John had a bit of a double-take at the choice of shirt - it bore the logo of some vaguely punk-looking music group, stark green and black against a brown backdrop. Was that a spare Crenshaw'd had with him, or...?

"Tch... he bleedin' knows I hate these sods and he goes and digs one'a their shirts out anyhow," Crenshaw muttered grumpily to himself as he tugged the towel off his head. His hair now stuck up in all directions round his skull, a halo of damp brown tufts.

"I... didn't realise Sherlock listened to anything composed after the 18th century," John replied with a blink. "That's really his shirt?"

Crenshaw scoffed slightly and rolled his eyes. "Course it's his. That or he's taken to nicking clothes off folks with the same awful taste in music as he has."

John quirked a bewildered smile. Secret life of Sherlock Holmes, he supposed... clandestinely listening to strange rock groups, apparently with enough enthusiasm to hunt down band logo shirts which he then never deigned to wear in public. Good _lord_, John had learnt more distressingly human facts about his flatmate in the last few hours than he'd managed to pick up over the course of an entire bloody year co-habitating with the man.

While John's mind was occupied being helplessly amused by the thought of Sherlock having musical interests beyond the scope of romance-era classical composers, Crenshaw had fallen to awkwardly glancing around the sitting room.

"Er... I don't suppose you'd have any spare blankets, then?" the man asked after a pause. John jumped a bit, realising that was _probably_ something he should have thought to fetch earlier, and hurriedly set down the phone to make his way to the linen cupboard in the hall.

"Right, yes! Sorry. Just in here," he tossed over his shoulder in passing. Crenshaw turned to amble after him, the lad's hands fidgeting idly with the towel still gripped between them.

"Don't bother," a deep voice cut in. John and Crenshaw both looked up to see Sherlock emerge from his bedroom. He stopped a few steps out of the doorframe and gestured back the way he'd come with his shoulder. "I've got a case on anyway. Less bother to use a bed already made than faff about with the spare linens."

John raised his eyebrows, unable to keep the amusement off his face - inviting a bloke to sleep in your _bed_, Sherlock? Housemates indeed. Beside him he caught Crenshaw's cheeks colouring in a vaguely indignant look.

"I ain't sleepin' in your _bed_, christ." The boy's accent had slipped quite a few notches into cockney in flustered annoyance - a fact Sherlock seemed to find highly amusing judging by his expression.

"We shared a room for several weeks without incident, I don't see how this is any different."

"We, that was-" Crenshaw sputtered, face going a deep beet red, but quickly seemed to collect himself with an exasperated glare. "We haven't spoken in _eight years_, you twat, that's a _bit_ of a bloody gap to just ignore. Especially when we only dated a month!"

Hah! _Dated! _They _were_ ex-boyfriends! John did his best to smother the childish grin but of course Sherlock spotted it. The man fixed him with an annoyed glare.

"John, if you don't stop making that face I'm going to spike your morning tea with capsaicin."

Crenshaw seemed to startle a bit and shot a look towards John, whereupon the lad's indignant expression morphed into something much more anxious.

"Ah... sorry," he muttered, darting a glance to Sherlock. "I wasn't sure if y'were-"

Sherlock cut him off with a dismissive flip of his hand. "I'm not, or wasn't, but that's irrelevant as John would have pieced things together in short order regardless. He's evidently got the whole picture now and is behaving like a juvenile moron because he finds the idea of my having been romantically involved with someone hilarious."

"That's not true," John objected, though it very much was. "I'm just pleased to know you've been, er... active, so to speak. Mycroft did sort of imply you were a-"

"_Mycroft_," Sherlock snapped, cutting John off. "... does not have the faintest idea of what I did during my early twenties. And I'd appreciate his remaining ignorant on the matter."

"You just don't want to have to tell your brother you dated a cockney bloke with freckles," John countered with what definitely wasn't a snort of mirth. Beside him Crenshaw's expression quickly drifted towards the affronted end of the spectrum.

"I'm standing right here, you know," the boy pointed out.

"Sorry," John offered in a tone anything but.

Sherlock huffed a put-upon sigh and turned back to his ex. "Do you want my bed or not?"

"Not with you in it." Crenshaw's answer was decidedly stern but his cheeks had flushed crimson, making John wonder how firm his stance on that really was. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Obviously not. I said earlier - I've got a case on."

"He doesn't sleep when he's working," John offered helpfully. "Nor eat," he added with a disapproving frown towards Sherlock, who met him with a flat look.

"Puerile infant or clucking mother hen, John. Kindly choose one or the other."

"Bleedin' christ," Crenshaw breathed in a tired huff, one hand going to shove through his still-damp hair. He quickly lowered the limb to rub at his eyes instead. "I... s'pose I'll take the bed, if no one's usin' it. You stay the _hell_ out, though." He punctuated the order by jabbing a finger in Sherlock's direction. "This ain't turnin' into a repeat of... everything."

"God forbid," Sherlock drawled. "John, the door."

John blinked. "The-?" He was cut off by the buzzer ringing loudly from the other room. "... door. Right, I've got it."

As he descended the stairs he glanced back over his shoulder - Sherlock and Crenshaw were staring each other down with an intensity that bordered on the obscene. John snickered to himself. Oh, this was _definitely _going in his blog.

**««**

Sherlock frowned and flicked a glance sidelong towards the distinct sound of John sniggering from the stairwell. Eric, he noted through some odd peripheral sense, mirrored his actions almost exactly. They both looked back to each other in near-tandem.

"Your flatmate's kind've..." Eric started, then trailed off with an unsure half-grimace. Sherlock rolled his eyes and pushed gently past the other man to head into the sitting room.

"Just ignore him," he grumbled over his shoulder. Eric would follow him, obviously, so he carried on speaking without bothering to turn around to check if he still had an audience. "John's an incorrigible gossip, especially when it comes to anything I happen to be involved with. You should see his bloody _blog_, for god's sake - the whole thing's nothing but write-ups of my cases."

Behind him Sherlock heard Eric snort in bland amusement. "So pretty much exactly your type, then?"

"What?" Sherlock finally reached the music stand he'd been headed for and shot a quizzical look at Eric. "The man's over a decade my senior, I'd hardly call tha-"

"No, no! Not like that," Eric clarified, making a disgusted face. "I meant he's obsessed with you and willing to have his ear talked off. Which you damn well _love_ cause you're a bleedin' narcissist."

"Oh... well, yes, in that sense I suppose he fills a certain role." Sherlock paused in the midst of picking up his violin to raise a brow at his guest. "Since when do you use words like 'narcissist'?"

Eric looked vaguely offended. "I do _read_, you arse."

"Didn't used to." Plucking at a string to check the pitch, Sherlock parroted a ridiculous sing-song version of cockney. _"Oh, no, I never bovvered with Shakespeare, all them bleedin' words!"_

"That doesn't count, I was stoned to hell when I said that. And your cockney's utter crap."

"Better than your RP."

"Like I'd ever wanna sound like a poncy-"

"Here we are, then!" John interrupted, appearing at the doorway with his head down as he rummaged through the takeaway bag in his hands. "Er... this one's yours, I think."

Eric blinked and accepted the styrofoam container being thrust in his direction. Sherlock waved his off. Not eating, obviously. He had a, er... case on. Yes.

Well... didn't_ really_, of course. Not technically speaking, anyway. Arson was solved, more or less, just waiting on an arrest now. But who cared, that was irrelevant - surely he could find something else to occupy himself overnight. Give Eric a chance to get a proper rest in a _bed_ instead of the stupid sofa, thing was far too small for a grown adult to find comfortable. Why he'd ever offered it in the first place he had no idea.

Realising he'd picked up his violin for no real reason Sherlock glanced down to his hands, frowned, then set the instrument back in its case. Wandered over to his laptop instead. He'd perhaps had a vague idea he might play a concerto, but with the room occupied by... well. No, checking his email would be a far more productive use of his time.

"Aw, I thought you were gonna play something," Eric piped up from the spot he'd taken on the sofa.

"I prefer not to serenade a crowded room," Sherlock explained vaguely as he flipped the lid of his laptop up. John snorted from his armchair.

"Bollocks you don't, you love an audience." After a short beat the doctor grinned to himself, then leant forward in his chair to point his fork in Sherlock's direction. "No, _you _just don't want to accidentally start playing something sappy in front of-"

"How's the _girlfriend_, John?" Sherlock broke in, tilting his head quizzically towards the man. "Broken up with you yet? Oh, no, you've still not found another one since Big-Nose. Sarah's still available, you know. Pining over you." John's expression was darkening into an angry glower, which was exactly the reaction Sherlock had been going for, so he quirked a deliberately infuriating smirk and turned his head fully to face his flatmate. Hah, found _just_ the right sore spot to jab, as usual - served John right for being such a bloody juvenile over the last few hours. A distinct hint of smugness crept into his voice as Sherlock continued on. "Can't imagine _why_, of course, you were clearly a poor match. But then she always did show an alarming tendency towards- hey!"

"Can I use this? Thanks." Eric had risen from his seat whilst Sherlock was busy speaking and, leaning right over Sherlock's shoulder, plucked the laptop out from under his hands. The freckled man set it down on the opposite side of the table and took a seat in the chair there, casually eating from the styrofoam takeaway box while he used his unoccupied hand to operate the machine.

Sherlock fixed his guest with an affronted glare, but Eric just smiled politely at him over the screen before going back to whatever he was doing.

"Carry on, mate, just checkin' my email," he said, waving a hand in preoccupied dismissal.

"Use your phone!" Sherlock snapped. John, on the other side of the room, had swiftly gotten over Sherlock's attempt to offend him and was now grinning to himself as he ate his meal.

"Nah, laptop's easier." Eric glanced across the table again, then used his fork to gesture vaguely towards John as he quirked an amused smile. "Carry on, then."

Sherlock scowled. Eric knew full-well he'd already lost his train of thought, the meddling arse.

"If you wanted me to shut up you could have just said so."

Eric took another bite of rice. "No, I really did need to check my email."

Sherlock huffed a short, grumbling sigh, then with a petulant glower he leant forward to pluck Eric's meal container and fork out of his hands in retaliation. Eric frowned up at him as Sherlock flopped back in his chair and took a bite of the other man's fried rice, expression making it clear this was payback.

From John's end of the room came the distinct _beep_ of a cameraphone, and Sherlock whipped his head up just in time to see his flatmate lowering his mobile to chuckle at the photo display.

"Is this that blog you were talking about?" Eric piped up before Sherlock could lob any scathing remarks John's way. Sherlock looked back around, brows furrowed - how...? Oh, wait, right. He'd had John's blog open in another tab. Eric must have switched windows and seen it. "_'A Study in Pink'_...?" Eric went on bemusedly.

"That was-" John started, but Sherlock cut him off.

"Oh let me tell the story, John, you always muck up the details." He leant forward to set Eric's food back on the table, then steepled his fingers. He flashed a rather egotistical little smirk over at Eric when the man glanced up at him.

"It began," Sherlock intoned grandly, "with a series of suicides..."

**««**

Sherlock's bed smelt like him.

Eric frowned into the pillow, then huffed a tired sigh and rolled over onto his back instead. He let one of his arms flop over the side of the mattress while the other rested loosely over his chest. Above him the ceiling loomed dark and indistinct, shifting wisps of ambient light making the walls look like a vast expanse of living shadow.

Dr Watson, as Sherlock's flatmate was apparently called, had extricated himself from the animated conversation they'd all three fallen into after Sherlock started telling stories about his detective cases nearly four hours ago. It'd taken about forty-five minutes for Eric to even notice the man had gone. And then another half hour after _that_ he'd finally clued in to the fact that it was going on midnight and he still had business meetings scheduled for the next day.

Losing track of the time wasn't something Eric did often - even back when he'd spent the majority of his days stoned out of his skull he'd still somehow always managed to keep a consistent internal clock. Because knowing how long he'd been doing things, the when and where and why of the world, had always seemed to give him that tiny sense of stability he otherwise found lacking so often in his life. It was his safety net; a tether to sanity.

Over the decades only a very small number of things had ever taken that all-important awareness of time away from him. One was the medication he'd been forced into taking after Mum finally snapped, which was why he'd so quickly abandoned the stuff in favour of weed. The other was... well…

The other was being smitten. Really, properly, head-over-heels, _falling _for someone. In love. Like a giddy schoolgirl.

He scowled viciously to himself and brought his hands up to cover his face, sighing in exasperation. Alright, mate, _no_. Get it together. Starting to sound like one of those bloody teen gossip rags Missy was always reading. He was not about to _fall in love_ with a bloke he'd dated for all of a month, had met while _stoned_, even, and whom he'd only been reunited with for a few hours _eight sodding years_ later. That was absurd.

No, Sherlock was just distracting him from keeping proper track of the time because the guy was a complete nutter, not because Eric still felt anything for him. Plus there'd also been the fire, hadn't there, and Mick disappearing so really it was no _wonder_ Eric's head was falling a bit to pieces right now. Nothing whatsoever to do with the giant prat in the other room. Just normal everyday nerves, that was all.

With a glower for his own scattered thoughts Eric rolled over to his side and flopped his head down on the _(Sherlock's, shut up, damn it all the fabric smells like his bloody hair)_ pillow. He glared into the darkness of the room for a moment - then gasped as a sudden spike of terrified panic shot through his chest. The shadows were staring back at him.

"_Je_-sus fucking _christ!_" he yelped, scrambling up into a sitting position and scuttling backwards to the other side of the mattress. The eyes in the shadows blinked.

"Sorry," a deep voice said. Sherlock's willowy form seemed to coalesce out of the aether as he stepped forward into a pool of weak light from the streetlamp outside the window. He looked vaguely irked by Eric's shouting. And, despite his apology, not the least bit contrite. "Forgot I'd left a file in here."

"So instead'a knocking on th'door you fuckin' _snuck in_ while I slept!?" Eric barked, scandalised.

Sherlock shrugged. "Didn't seem worth waking you." He strode over to a table on the far end of the room and began shuffling through a pile of papers and folders there. "Though I suppose that concern was rather unwarranted, seeing as how you appear to be suffering from a bout of insomnia. Anxiety?"

"_No_," Eric snapped. He leant one elbow on his half-bent knee, pinched the bridge of his nose in tired vexation. "No. I'm on meds for that now, thanks. Not that it's any of your business."

"What, then?" Sherlock picked up a sheaf of looseleaf print and idly flipped through it.

"_Nothin'_, god. I was thinking about..." A pregnant pause as Eric forced himself not to say the trite, and very embarrassing, _'you'_ which would have ended that sentence. He cleared his throat instead, dropped his hand from his face to scowl awkwardly toward the window. "Er... finances."

Sherlock turned and raised a brow at him, clearly unconvinced. Eric met his gaze with a glare, cheeks flushing, and wordlessly dared the git to challenge his lie.

After a second Sherlock seemed to catch on to some hidden detail; his mouth opened in a small _oh_ of realisation as a slightly surprised look crept over his features. Eric's glare immediately shifted into flat exasperation - oh for christ's _sake_. He'd forgotten Sherlock could damn near read peoples' thoughts in their body language. Not remotely fair.

"Is it even worth telling you not to do that?" he grumbled, lowering his face to rest the side of his forehead heavily in the palm of one hand.

"Really can't help it when you're broadcasting like a neon sign," Sherlock replied with a half-shrug of his shoulder which had probably been intended as flippant, but which came off more like an awkward fidget than anything. He cleared his throat and fiddled with the packet of paper he was holding as his eyes flicked back to Eric's tired gaze.

Eric sighed again, rubbing at his eyelids in exhaustion. _Sherlock_, god. What an arse.

"... the sodding bed smells like you," he finally admitted in a flat mumble.

"It's my bed," Sherlock pointed out. Eric opened his eyes again to shoot the man an unimpressed stare, which was met with nothing but a look of blank confusion. "... I really don't know what else you were expecting."

"I wasn't- _god._" Eric threw his arms up, letting himself flop backwards onto the mattress. He sighed angrily at the ceiling. "I weren't expectin' anything _different_, I dunno. It's just... bloody distracting, is all. Can't sleep."

"You could move to the sofa," Sherlock offered.

"Yeah, because bein' _in the same room as you_ is definitely gonna help."

"Would it?" Sherlock asked, sounding a bit bewildered. "I thought you were-"

"Sarcasm."

"Oh."

An awkward silence stretched between them for several seconds. Finally Eric lifted his head, catching sight of Sherlock staring at him with a look like he thought Eric might spontaneously combust if he said anything untoward. They held each other's gaze for a few quiet beats before Eric finally dragged himself back upright. He leant his forearms heavily on his knees and eyed his long-ex boyfriend with a calculating frown.

God, this whole ridiculous situation... what was a bloke even supposed to _do_?

Though of course, the frank truth of the matter was that Eric knew exactly what to do - or knew what he _wanted_ to do, anyway. Pretty much what he'd wanted all bloody night long. But he couldn't be sure if he'd be making an enormous mistake by going with that immediate gut impulse. This wasn't some drug-addled uni dropout anymore, after all, but a respected detective. Not a man to be trifled with. And, yet, he was also... he was also _Sherlock_, so... ugh. Damn it, why did this all have to be so difficult!?

As Eric's internal debate with himself waged on the silence around them continued unabated, creeping out to fill all the spaces of the room like an overstretched balloon. Sherlock, doubtless made antsy by the stillness, fidgeted with his papers.

"... I won't punch you," he finally muttered in a quiet voice. Eric blinked and, glancing up, huffed a small laugh. Sherlock answered with a smile. His expression still looked a bit confused and uncertain, perhaps even wary, but his hands were no longer compulsively fiddling with the printouts in his hands - probably a good sign, that. Meant he wasn't really on-edge or nervous anymore, just alert. Trying to figure out what was going on.

And, well... sod it, then, Eric decided with a shake of his head. Might as well take this opportunity while he still had it. He'd be furious with himself for _ages_ if he didn't. With a determined set to his jaw he leant forward to grab Sherlock firmly by the hand, threw his weight backwards and physically _dragged_ the idiot down on top of him.

"Oof!" Sherlock exclaimed as his papers went flying. He landed hard on the mattress in a jumble of limbs, huffing a surprised expletive, plainly unenthusiastic about his new predicament. Eric ignored his flailing attempt to get back upright and instead grabbed the git round the midsection in a tight, almost desperate hug.

"I missed you, you goddamned prat," he mumbled into Sherlock's shirt.

Sherlock coughed, apparently a bit winded by the fall _(or the hug, which admittedly may have been cutting off his air supply)_, and snaked an arm round to awkwardly pat Eric on the back.

"I, er... missed you too," he replied in bewilderment. "Is there a reason you felt a need to-?"

"Shut up, we're hugging," Eric grumbled.

"... Alright."

**««**


End file.
